ABOUT US

The Air Operations Centre Of Excellence, a multi-national manned French funded organization, draws on experience and skills within air operations, technical simulation and Air C2 (Command and Controle) systems domains. AO COE manning includes highly-trained resident officers from the French Air and Space Force, Army and Navy, as well as Italy, Greece and the United States, in order to provide a diverse, joint air operations perspective to all AO COEs.

The AO COE offers recognized expertise and experience within air operations for the benefit of the Alliance. To this end, the COE aims to :

• become NATO's premier venue for sharing experience and expertise in the fields of air operations with personnel, ranging from those new to operations to senior officials ;
• provide NATO entities with air operations training based on critical thinking and realistic simulation to create effective Learning experiences ;
• develop concepts including new technologies in air operations and experiment and test new C2 systems.

 

AO COE History :

1997 : creation of the analysis and simulation centre for preparation for air operations, in the former government command post.

1998 : first courses IAO (Introduction to Air Operations) and ICC (Integrated Command and Control) with more than a hundred trainees, mostly French.

2000 : first airforce CPX/CAX (Command Post eXercise/Computer Assisted eXercise) orgaznized from the centre during the ODAX 2000 exercise. Ramp-up of the unit with more than 350 trainees, including more than 20% foreigners.

2001 : implementation of various training courses in air operations for the benefit of French and foreign soldiers (Air Battle Elementary Training Course, Air Battle Planning Management Course, JFAC Commander Course).

2002 : moving of the centre to a more functional location with improved reception capacities and modularity of technical rooms.

2008 : accreditation as a NATO Centre of Excellence.

2010 : moving of the centre to the airbase 942, where it joined he national air operations center and FR-JFACC, within the air operations brigade.

2013 : the centre gets the "Quality Assurance" qualification linked to training by ACT (Allied Command Transformation).